Our smiley snowman card, winter 2008

Hello everyone!
Let us introduce our new greeting card, winter version, 2008.
Their smiles are so adorable, aren’t they?



The snowman design is beautifully letter pressed onto our original cotton cards, which are made at the foot of Mt. Fuji in Japan.
We had sent these cards to clients, and we got many great feedbacks, which made us so happy :)

Our two stores open until December 29th and will open from January 4th, 2009.
It is our pleasure that so many Japanese and foreign people visited our stores this year.
We would love to say thank you to our customers, who visited our stores and online stores. And of course, many thanks to you, who are visiting our blog now!

If you find a minute to say “hi” or “konnichiwa”, feel free to leave comments or e-mail us anytime.


The display of December in Osaka store

Enjoy your holidays!

Rumi and Maki from Japan

Season's Greetings

Hello all, I hope you are enjoying the sweet winter.
Tokyo is getting colder…
There is a myriad of twinkling Christmas lights creating a gorgeous atmosphere of romance around the oh-so-busy city!

Since we have a plan to exhibit in the stationery show in January (Frankfurt, Germany!),
we are extremely busy with the preparation.
Phew! No time to enjoy the Christmas lights. Haha.
But we don't care since this is the first time to join as an exhibitor, we are so thrilled with the big event :)

We would love to report the show in this blog in February.
Also, we are producing new products for the show, so let us introduce them to you soon.

Happy holidays to you all!


(Tokyo Tower)

Rumi

2009, the year of "moo!"

Hello world, I hope you all are enjoying the lovely season.
Tokyo is getting colder, and we can see so many gorgeous and sweet Christmas lights around the city. So romantic!
It’s unbelievable that this year has only one more month...!

In Japan, 2009 is the year of ox (cow).
This custom is based on the traditional Chinese astrology. There are 12 animal symbols, which begin with the Rat, and continue to Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar (wild pig). (And then it starts again from the Rat.)
Now, it's the Rat year, so the next year is Ox.

We made these cute new year cards. The theme is (of course!) “mooooo!”




Also, these are other new year cards. (They are not related to the topic, though…)



I hope you like our cards :)

Have a powerful weekday!

Rumi from sunny Tokyo

Winged Wheel workshop

Hi everyone, I hope you are all enjoying the lovely autumn.

We had a workshop last month in our Osaka store.
This time, our staff, Machiko introduced interesting stationery history (yes, it's fun!) and manners.

Have you ever seen or touched a real cotton flower?
Machiko brought it and explained the process of making the cotton paper.



At the workshop, all members made their own personalized mini cards using our cotton paper.
They selected a font, color and motif from our design book.
After 2 weeks later, they could pick up their cards at the store.
We are so happy that everyone really enjoyed our workshop!

Have a nice weekend!

Maki

Display of Tokyo store and holiday gift idea

Hello everyone, today is Halloween!

Although we can see many Jack O' Lanterns, sweet & spooky decorations at stores or restaurants, it's too bad that the custom is not so popular here in Japan.
Do you celebrate the event in your country?

Well, our display of Tokyo store now is not a Halloween stuff, but it's so lovely.
I hope you can see it clearly...the theme is "brown x pink gifts"!



These days, we have some inquiries overseas for holiday gifts.Some of them are looking for personalized stationery to their loved ones.
I think it's a good idea, too!
This is our series 700, with a foil stamped name.
So lovely, right?



Happy Halloween :)

Rumi in Tokyo

New wrapping paper!

Hello world! This is Rumi from Tokyo.

Check out our new wrapping paper!
These chic papers have just arrived from our plant.We chose Japanese washi paper, and designed "gold spiral" onto the paper.
Which one do you like better?



These wrapping papers are only avairable for Winged Wheel English website customers.
Although the gift wrapping service is not free ($2), I'm sure it makes your present look more gorgeours ;)

Since I personaly love Japanese washi paper, I am already addicted to them.
My favorite is green one. This color reminds me of green tea...with some sweets...(hm...yum!)

Staff correspondence cards collection

All of Winged Wheel staff have own motifs or monograms.
Some of designs are drawn by hand.
We send letters to customers using these correspondence cards.



The theme of my motif is ocean.
Since I was born in a beautiful small island (in the southern area of
Japan), I used to play water sports there. I love surfing :)



I always write by fountain pen with blue black ink.
Also, I like to find some beautiful stamps in the post office.
When I write a letter to someone, I select the best stamp which really match
with her/his image.

A lost art, letter writing culture is pretty cool in this digital world, I
guess...!

Rumi from Tokyo

My calling cards - rabbit

Hello everyone, this is Maki from Osaka.
This time, Iet me show you my brand-new calling cards.

I always bring two types of calling cards, one is for my business, and another is for my private use.

Since I wanted to make unique ones, this time I chose "rabbit" cards (#602 series), and printed by letter-press. In our stores, there are many cards for printing, and I selected pure cotton cards. So, my cards have unique, but elegant taste.
My favorite!



One of our customers ordered "camel"(#602 series) for her calling cards.
Since she always goes to business trips worldwide with a lot of luggage, the cards are really matching with her image.

Some foreign magazines introduced us!

These days, we are soo soo happy since our stores and cards are featured by some foreign magazines such as Australia, UK, and China!

Do you know GQ (UK version), a famous men's fashion magazine?
We were thrilled that they selected us as one of "the best design stores in the world" in
October issue. Yay!

Also, Australian famous interior/design magazine, INSIDE OUT and
Chinese luxurious magazine SevenSeas introduced us as "must visit" store.

This is a cover of SevenSeas China. It is very interesting since
it is the first time to see our article in Mandarin.
We cannot read though...!
But we can guess from some Chinese characters, which Japanese also use.
On the cover, probably they say "A guide book of the gorgeous tour in Tokyo" Cool !



Very popular design blog in the U.S, "design*sponge" also introduced our new series,
#602 animal cards. Many thanks, Grace!



We believe "word-of-mouth" is very very important for us.
It would be great if you could introduce Winged Wheel to your friends :)

Arigatou!

Rumi & Maki

Winged Wheel's English website

Finally, we have just opened our new website...!
So, we are very excited!




Of course, customers can purchase our items directly on the website.
If you have time, please visit the website.
http://www.winged-wheel.co.jp/en/index.html

In this online store, we introduced some of our standard series, and
their tastes are different each other.
We hope you can find your favorite one...

Enjoy!

Rumi and Maki

An idea for wedding thank you notes

Today, we have a lovely sunny day here in Tokyo.
So comfy!

One of our popular cards is 631 series. As you can see from the picture, these cards have various colors with pretty flower designs.
We selected Japanese traditional colors for these.

Most of our customers like this series, and some of them make their personalized calling cards(casual business cards), thank you notes, etc.
Some couples use them as wedding invitations, too.
I think it's a cool idea!



By using this series, my close friend, Cayce ordered thank you notes for her two girls' friends in Florida and Texas, who are going to have wedding parties in September.
(September is very popular for a wedding season in Japan, too.)
As for the font of "Thank you," she selected an elegant script font, which is very matching with the pretty cards.
I'm so glad that these cards are popular among American people as well as Japanese.

Many thanks, Cayce!

Rumi

A little artwork of Winged Wheel

Hi everyone! This is Maki from Osaka.

At Winged Wheel, you can see an unique "obget" at the show windows.
Now, we have a lovely display here in Osaka store.
The theme of this month is "honey comb." I love it!



Every store display is created by staff members seasonally, and the materials are all paper in our stores. People in the street often stop by at our show window, and see this cute work.
The impression of the obget changes between day and night.
I hope you like it too.

Enjoy the splendid autumn!

Maki

Hot Safari Cards!

Hi all, please check out our hot cards, Safari series!
Don't you think they are sweet?



My favorite card is Leopard. Especially, her/his(?) eyes are so cool !
The size of these items is a little smaller than a post card, and it is beautifully letterpressed onto the cotton card.
There is a little room to write a short message on the animal printing side, but you can also write
a message on the backside, too.

This series is new in our stores, and is already getting popular.
If you are in Tokyo or Osaka, Please visit us!

Today, it is rainy and cool here in Tokyo.
It's still August, but it seems the autumn is just around the corner.

Hope you are well in your place.

Rumi

Our chic items, for stationery lovers!

Hello world, I'm Rumi from Tokyo.
This time, I want to show you some of my favorite cards in my store.
I hope you like them!
Which designs do you like the best?

We have more than 1000 items in our stores.
There are some main series, we call "Winged Wheel standard series". They are very popular not only foreign customers, but Japanese people.

Last week, an American customer, who works as a fashion designer in Tokyo, visited our store with her sister. (She really loves our items, and visits us several times.) This time, she brought her sister, who were visiting Tokyo as vacation. I was glad that her sister also loved our items. It was really fun to chat with them!

Although it is hard to show you all items of our stores, but I will try to
introduce you some of them in this blog soon :)

Rumi

Have you ever been to Osaka?

I hope you all are enjoying the hot summer.

(Maybe not so hot in your place?)
I am writing from Osaka, Japan.
Osaka is sooooo hot these days...!

My name is Maki, and my job is to creat/plan our Winged Wheel items.
We have a chic stationery store in Osaka, the second largest city in Japan.
Our store is in Shinsaibashi area, where is the hottest town in Osaka.
There are luxurious stores such as Louis Vuitton, Channel and Cartier,

but you can also find sassy boutiques and yummy Osakan foods in the town.

Winged Wheel Shinsaibashi(Osaka)

We are so happy that many foreign customers visit our stores by looking some guide books.
If you have a chance to visit Tokyo or Osaka, please stop by our stores.

Maki from Osaka

Hello from Tokyo and Osaka!

Hi there, my name is Rumi.
I am working at a chic stationery store, called "Winged Wheel" in Tokyo.
I am a sales/PR staff of Winged Wheel.

We've just opened our blogger page! Yay!!
So, if you are interested in stationery/paper such as greeting cards, envelopes, and lettersheets...,
please check out our page at
http://www.winged-wheel.co.jp/en/index.html
Although we can only accept online orders in Japan at the moment, our online store will be open to all international customers in September!


Winged Wheel Omotesando(Tokyo)

Our items are all made in Japan, and are 100% our original.
Actually, we have two stores, one in Tokyo and one in Osaka.

In our stores, you can find more than 1000 items, so we would like to introduce many products to the world!

I will write with my colleague, Maki.
She lives in Osaka, and her job is to plan/create the Wigned Wheel products.Sometimes, she will tell you about the story of each item, and also the culture of Osaka, where is the exciting city as well as Tokyo.

Thank you for reading.

Have a lovely day :)

Rumi